Trey Haverty and Kevin Curtis had their work cut out for them right from the start. Texas Tech’s new safeties coach and new cornerbacks coach took over a secondary that lost four seniors, all of them key players.

They answered some questions in the spring, but have even more to solve once preseason workouts begin in August.

Their group in a nutshell: Safeties Tre Porter and J.J. Gaines and cornerback Bruce Jones provide a foundation, but the second cornerback position and most backup spots are wide open.

Porter’s a senior with 22 career starts, getting eight in 2012 at nickel back. Jones is a senior who made six starts last year, and Gaines was groomed to take over for D.J. Johnson.

Porter and Gaines give the Red Raiders a pair of solid options to succeed multi-year starters Cody Davis and Johnson.

“J.J.’s been a consistent player. Tre, same deal,” Haverty said. “Those two guys are kind of the consistent veterans.”

March and April practices represented a big opportunity for Gaines, and he took advantage by having as good a spring as any defensive back.

“He’s just consistent,” Haverty said. “He’s small, but he does his job. He’s smart, he wants to be good and he works hard.”

Former state-meet sprinter Keenon Ward from Snyder is behind Porter at free safety. Come August, newcomers Dorian Crawford and Jalen Barnes will be given a chance to back up Gaines at strong safety. Crawford played a year apiece at Humboldt State and Mt. San Antonio College, both in California, and Barnes comes from Port Arthur Memorial.

Haverty wants to see them in person before making judgments.

“Jalen, you see him on film, but it’s hard to evaluate,” Haverty said. “DBs are sometimes hard because you can’t necessarily see how good their feet are in man coverage.

“And the same deal with Dorian. He had a lot of film where he’s pressing, so it’s hard to be able to tell: Can he get a guy running at him full speed at 12 yards depth and be able to flip his hips? Those are the things we need to evaluate in fall camp.”

Austin Stewart, who trained behind Davis last year, could move to nickel back, the spot Porter had in 2012. Freshman signee Caleb Woodward from Leander also is a possibility at nickel back or either safety spot, Haverty said.

Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury called Stewart “super athletic.”

“We’re just trying to find him a spot on the field, possibly a nickel-type guy or a deep safety,” Haverty said. “He played safety all spring, so we know he can do it. We’re just moving guys around, trying to get the best 22 out there.”

Jones had 31 tackles and seven pass breakups in 2012 and showed what coaches wanted in the spring.

“Bruce is a guy who I thought made a bunch of plays,” Kingsbury said. “He’s an older guy, so he’s played and he’s savvy. He’ll sit on routes and take gambles, which I like. He’s not the biggest guy, but he’s scrappy. He’ll stick his nose in the run game.”

Other than Jones, Curtis has more than a half dozen corners he wants to get a better look at in August. Some of the evaluation process was stunted because sophomore Jeremy Reynolds, coming off knee surgery, couldn’t practice this spring, and senior Derrick Mays missed most of the spring after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery.

Ola Falemi, a juco transfer who played on special teams in 2012, made the most of the situation to be the best corner other than Jones.

“Not knowing much about guys, we kind of started him third on the depth chart,” Curtis said, “and it ended up that he was on the first team. He kept getting better. He can run. He’s still learning the position and learning how to give himself the best chance, but he’s a guy that made some plays throughout the spring. He’s a guy that you feel like you’re starting to trust.”

Curtis said he has no set depth chart beyond Jones and Falemi being the two best coming out of spring.

Determining the top four corners is his first priority in preseason practice. In addition to Reynolds and Mays, returnees Brandon Bagley, Theirry Nguema and La’Darius Newbold will be fighting for spots alongside newcomers Martin Hill, Dee Paul and Justis Nelson.

Curtis said he’s not concerned about having enough snaps to evaluate so many candidates.

“The luxury for us is we do 50 plays in team (11-on-11 scrimmage) every day,” he said. “Because we go so many plays and we’re so fast, we’re able to do a lot of plays. If you’re going 50 plays in team, when normal people do 20 or 25, that’s doubling the reps.

“So you’re going to have plenty of time to evaluate guys through our team (period), through 7-on-7, through drills. You’ll have plenty of time to figure out who’s picking it up, who’s competing.”

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With a lot of new starting QB's in the league this year, youth performing well in the secondary could make ttu a surprise contender if the line play improves. Could also spell 8th or 9th place if tuber left the cupboard bare. 7-5 is probably the most reasonable expectation.